The following article (scroll down) was written in Xtra this past week (February 5, 2011).  It describes a situation in Toronto, within the Jewish community, whereby an Orthodox rabbi spoke out on Shabbat (the Sabbath) in his Synagogue against a gay and lesbian lifestyle and support of Pride Day participation, when anti-Israel groups would be present and vocal.

Read the article and the email that follows it. It gives insight into the Jewish community, one could almost say, a view of ‘our dirty laundry’, and the dynamics that occur when community leaders, such as Rabbi Mendel Kaplan and Bernie Farber, approach this issue from completely different perspectives. then, thrown into the ring is Justine Apple, the executive director of Kulanu, and Jewish gay and lesbian activist group.

It is a fascinating perspective on the layers and complexities any community would have to deal with when religious values collide with security issues, and questions of human rights. Read about Justine’s bid to have Rabbi Kaplan tossed out of his position of chaplain for York Regional Police (YRP). Think about Justine’s point: how could a gay Jew in need of a rabbi go to Rabbi Kaplan after he had spoken publicly, from his pulpit, on Shabbat, against such a lifestyle? Her feelings are powerful, and why wouldn’t they be. Gays and lesbians have been marginalized for years by the Jewish community.

But life is not a straight line – never. The Rabbi’s position is predicated on the language of the Torah describing homosexuality, as ‘abominatable’.  His belief,  and that of many other Jews, is that homosexuality goes against God’s will and cannot be condoned or supported through attendance at a Pride Parade. Why wouldn’t he take that position? The wording in the Torah is clear. He is a relgious man. It makes sense through his eyes.

And then there is Bernie Farber, the chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress who stated in his emails back and forth with Rabbi Kaplan that 

“…regardless of the nature of the parade, this is a major event on our city’s calendar and the step we took represented a defense of Israel and the Jewish people that is playing out in the general media.”

Bernie attended “Pride” in support of Kulanu, but more so the Jewish community and Israel. He is an individual who has faced down such Jew haters as Ernst Zundel, once the biggest distributor of hate literature in the world? That’s his job. It’s what he does well. Why wouldn’t he perceive ‘Pride’ in a dramatically divergent way than Rabbi Kaplan, and encourage the entire Jewish community to attend the event in support of Israel, in defense of the Jewish people? The Bernie Farbers of the world are enormously important to the safety of the Jewish people. Few Jews today in our community are as brave. 

Read this article and determine your thoughts on it. I’m sure your feelings will be strong either way, but it is far more important to come at it from a rational point of view. Emotions only dilute and confuse the challenge. Who do you think is right? Is everyone, or is nobody? If God says homosexuals are acting against Godliness then shouldn’t we hold back our support of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, as painful as it might be? Maybe Rabbi Kaplan is right and there really was no need for Jewish participation at ‘Pride’. We’re being dumped on everyday, everywhere. 

Or does everything get tossed out the door when Jewish/Israel security is at risk? No matter what you think about the Torah precept, shouldn’t we walk hand-in-hand or at least together with, any and all Jews when the cry erupts for our support?

And on the other hand, isn’t Kulanu right? Homosexuality. Abomination? Really? What is so incredibly horrible? Abominable! Are you kidding. Somewhat archaic, no?

Read this ( http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism/FAQ/06-Jewish-Thought/section-29.html) :  The term (abomination) is typically used in the Torah proper (the first five Books of the Bible) to refer to extremely serious offenses which completely undermine the basis of any conceivably sound religious or moral society from G-d’s standpoint. Among the offenses are male homosexual acts, idolatry, and child sacrifice. Idolatry and child sacrifice are particularly identified with the Canaanites, and are cited as grounds for their being dispossessed by the People of Israel in the Land of Israel after the Exodus from Egypt.”"

Child sacrifice. A man with a man. Are these two really equal in the eyes of Rabbi Kaplan and other Jews who subscribe to the belief that homosexuals are abominable?

Consider the facts. Read the article, and of course don’t believe all of it. There is a forth player in all of this – the media.

Let me know your thoughts. Interestingly, this is not a new debate, and it won’t end tomorrow. Such is life – Layers upon layers upon dimensions and brushstrokes of truth.

 http://www.xtra.ca/public/Toronto/York_Regional_Polices_rabbi_under_fire_for_antigay_comments-9731.aspx#pComment

Please read it and consider the injustices occuring in this country. This is one example of a country around the world abusing its citizens, governmental power, and the inalienable right to be free and practice a lifestyle of choice. Please consider responding to these abuses by read.

 Summary

This submission highlights a number of key areas of concern regarding Turkey’s compliance with its international human rights obligations. It focuses on restrictions on freedom of expression; minority rights; the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people; police torture and ill-treatment; and upholding the rule of law and combating impunity.

Of particular significance is the government’s announcement in summer 2009 that it is committed to ensuring the human rights of Kurds in Turkey through what it termed a “democratic opening up” giving rise to hope that a long-stalled reform process might be restarted.  The realization of a plan to uphold minority rights for Turkey’s different ethnic and religious groups would represent a fundamental departure from the variously assimilationist or repressive policies of the past, and offers the possibility of advancing the fundamental rights and freedoms of all groups across ethnic and religious lines.

Numerous provisions of the current constitution – drawn up in 1982 under a military regime – restrict human rights and fundamental freedoms. For this reason, Human Rights Watch considers revision of the constitution to ensure that it does not restrict human rights as a priority for the Turkish government.

Freedom of Expression, Association and Assembly

The criminalization of opinion remains a key obstacle to the protection of human rights in Turkey, although debate is increasingly open and critical. Prosecutions of journalists, writers, publishers, academics, human rights defenders, and officials of Kurdish political parties and associations remain commonplace, and continue in some cases to result in convictions. Judicial decisions lack consistency, with one court convicting and another acquitting for the same offense. Journalists and editors are frequently prosecuted for investigative reporting on matters such as the conduct of the military. Temporary closure of newspapers and long-term restriction of access through judicial and administrative decisions to many websites, including YouTube, continue.

At the time of writing, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which has 20 members in parliament, is faced with a closure case pending before the Constitutional Court for alleged separatist activities. The case has been pending since November 2007. Turkey’s legislation governing political parties has come under international criticism; in March 2009 the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe published its opinion on the matter, finding that articles 68 and 69 of the constitution and provisions of the Law on Political Parties are together incompatible with article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to freedom of assembly and association).

Prosecutions of DTP parliamentarians (at the time of writing denied parliamentary immunity), DTP mayors, and party officials  for such offenses as “making propaganda for the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party]” and “praising crimes and criminals” run into the hundreds, with a regular pattern of convictions. At least 64 DTP officials are currently in pre-trial detention pending trial for alleged connections with the PKK.

In May 2009, 34 mainly Izmir-based members of trade unions affiliated with the public sector workers’ trade union confederation KESK were detained, with 22 imprisoned pending trial on charges of being members of the PKK. The evidence against them mainly refers to their activities in support of such issues as Kurdish-language education.  Four lawyers, who had been involved in documenting prisoners’ complaints about prison conditions and ill-treatment, are currently on trial for membership in the PKK.

Minority Rights

In summer 2009, the AKP government committed itself to a “democratic opening” to extend the fundamental rights and freedoms of all citizens, notably referring to Kurds in Turkey. This was an unprecedented departure from previous state policies and must be supported through revision of the constitution and amendments to laws. Ensuring an end to prosecutions of officials of Kurdish political parties and others for non-violent speech and for exercising their right to association (described in the previous section) must be a priority objective for the government if it is to be seen as serious about upholding minority rights.

Turkey has come under international scrutiny and criticism for its restrictive policies toward minorities. In his October 2008 report on Turkey, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights criticized Turkey’s continuing failure to recognize religious and ethnic minority groups other than Greeks, Armenians, and Jews and urged Turkey to adopt numerous measures to uphold minority rights “with a view to fully aligning law and practice with the Council of Europe human rights standards.”

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in its March 4, 2009 concluding observations on Turkey recommended, among other measures, that the government “enact comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation,” and introduce “amendments to the legislation to allow teaching of languages traditionally used in Turkey in the general public education system.”

LGBT Rights

Turkey has a longstanding record of violence and abuse targeting people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity, and restrictions on freedom of expression and association of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.  Human Rights Watch has recorded eleven killings of transgender people since July 2008.

Government authorities have tried to close down several LGBT groups in Turkey using article 56 of the Civil Code, which states that “No association may be founded for purposes against law and morality.” Pink and Black Triangle, an LGBT group in the coastal city of Izmir currently faces a closure case under this provision. In April 2009, Turkey’s Court of Cassation ruled against the closure of Lambda Istanbul Solidarity Association. However, the court’s ruling included the discriminatory condition that the association should not “encourage lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite and transsexual behavior with the aim of spreading such sexual orientations.”

Torture, Ill-treatment, and Killings by Security Forces

Police ill-treatment is a widespread problem in Turkey, and occurs both in and outside places of official detention, as well as during arrest and demonstrations. In a recent case, Güney Tuna was allegedly beaten by seven police officers in Istanbul in October 2009, leaving him with a broken leg and serious head injury, which failed to be recorded in a routine custody medical report. The policing of demonstrations remains a major concern, and in April 2009 gendarmes were allegedly responsible for shooting dead two demonstrators during an unauthorized demonstration in Suruç, Urfa.

In a positive development, starting July 1, it became obligatory for all police officers in riot gear to wear numbered helmets for purposes of identification.

Turkish courts are notoriously lenient towards members of the security forces who are charged with abuse or misconduct, contributing to impunity and the persistence of torture and the resort to lethal force. Long delays and the lack of thorough and independent investigations by prosecutors contribute to impunity.

Of particular concern is the approach of Turkey’s top court to the use of lethal force by security forces.  In June 2009, the Court of Cassation upheld the acquittal of four police officers for the November 2004 killing of Ahmet Kaymaz and his 13-year-old son Uğur in the southeastern town of Kızıltepe. The court ignored substantial forensic evidence indicating that the father and son may have been victims of a summary execution. Lawyers for the Kaymaz family have applied to the European Court of Human Rights.

A notable exception to this pattern of impunity were the prompt trial proceedings that opened in January 2009 against 60 prison guards, gendarmes, and police officers in connection with the October 2008 death of Engin Çeber. Seven prison guards remain in pre-trial detention at this writing. Çeber collapsed in Metris Prison and died in the hospital, an autopsy recording that he had suffered a brain hemorrhage after being repeatedly beaten.

International actors have raised concern about the persisting problem of torture and ill-treatment in Turkey, and the impunity with which it occurs. For example, the European Commission in its October 2009 report on Turkey noted that “allegations of torture and ill-treatment, and impunity for perpetrators are still a cause for great concern, and need to become a priority area for remedial action by the Turkish authorities.”

Upholding the rule of law and combating impunity

In July 2009, a second “Ergenekon” trial began probing an alleged plot to overthrow the government by senior retired military and gendarmerie personnel, serving officers, figures associated with organized crime, journalists, and academics. This trial runs concurrent with the first “Ergenekon” trial.  In all there are now 192 individuals on trial, in the first such attempt in Turkey’s modern history to bring coup plotters to justice.  The European Commission in its November 2009 regular report on Turkey acknowledged the importance of the Ergenekon trial “as an opportunity for Turkey to strengthen confidence in the proper functioning of its democratic institutions and the rule of law.” In early November 2009, the public prosecutor was investigating new evidence of a coup attempt in 2009 with the revelation of documentation allegedly outlining such a plot by elements of the armed forces. 

The most significant attempt at bringing to justice state perpetrators of extrajudicial killings and disappearances documented by human rights groups in the 1990s began in Diyarbakır in September 2009, with the trial of a colonel, village guards, and informers for the murder of 20 individuals in the period 1993-95 in Cizre, Şırnak province.

Close to three years after the January 19, 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist and human rights defender Hrant Dink, there has been no progress in uncovering state involvement in the conspiracy behind his killing. There have been 10 trial hearings in Istanbul against 20 defendants, including the gunman. Eight gendarmes are on trial in Trabzon for basic negligence in failing to act on repeated intelligence reports pointing to plans to murder Dink. Lawyers for the Dink family have called for their trial to be combined with the Istanbul murder trial; they have to date applied four times to the European Court of Human Rights complaining of violations of the right to life, fair trial, and prohibition on discrimination.

Recommendations

Regarding constitutional restrictions of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the Turkish government should be urged to:

• Revise the constitution to ensure no provisions impede the enjoyment of fundamental rights and freedoms and rule of law in Turkey

Regarding freedom of expression, assembly, and association, the Turkish government should be urged to:

• Conduct a review of all articles of the Turkish Penal Code, the Anti-Terror Law, and other laws that are used to restrict the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly, and amend or repeal restrictive provisions.

Regarding minority rights and LGBT rights, the Turkish government should be urged to:

• Withdraw its reservation to article 27 of the ICCPR on minority rights. Ratify the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and other international instruments relating to minority rights, and ensure that they are fully enforced;
• Revise laws containing discriminatory provisions (such as prohibitions on use of languages other than Turkish);
• Enact comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation, including a prohibition on discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity;
• Include the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity in constitutional changes.

Regarding measures to combat torture, ill-treatment, and excessive use of force, and impunity for these crimes, the Turkish government should be urged to:

• Ratify the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT), requiring the establishment of an independent national preventive mechanism for monitoring places of detention;
• Ensure adherence to the Paris Principles, providing that a national preventative mechanism (or national human rights institution containing such a mechanism) be created as an independent body, adequately skilled, resourced and empowered, accountable to the public and established with the active participation of civil society groups;
• Establish an effective independent mechanism to carry out prompt, impartial, and thorough investigations into allegations of misconduct by members of the security forces that are capable of leading to prosecution of offenders and holding senior officers responsible for the conduct of junior officers;
• Ensure that trial hearings of law enforcement officials take place without undue delay.

If you can’t see this video please click on the link below. Mia Farrow is a leader. While the world looks for them, and frequently says, ‘There are no world leaders’ – she proves otherwise. Mia Farrow has faced down the Janjaweed and shown the world amputeed souls, both little and big. Follow her work and support it. She is larger than life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c4O0YiDGJQ

According to Islamic law, capital punishment such as stoning requires witnesses at the time of penetration – 2 men, or 4 women. Watch this video and determine whether that was the case in the charges and ultimate sentencing of two sisters to death, by stoning.

It seems not. And if that is the case then why is the Iranian ‘judicial system’ sentencing these two women to death? Are they a killing system constantly in need of more people to murder? Are the pandering to the very extreme fundamentalist in their nation and others? Likely.

Iran’s government is barbaric and dangerous, not only to Israel and surrounding countries but particularly to its own people. Research Iran and capital punishment and join in the fight against it. Participate in a growing world voice attempting to overthrow the Iranian regime, which will ultimately bring more peace and calm in the region.

The Iranian people are generally good folk looking for ways and means of joining the world through education, business and spirit. Help them along.

We all are marginalized in one way or another.

I am a Jew and that needs no explanation. You are a woman, and of course that requires less. You are black, yellow, red, Hutu, Tutsi, Christian, Muslim, Zoroastrian, Aboriginal, a child, white, an adult or gay. You have all been tossed out of the mainstream courtyard of tolerance and  acceptance at one time or  another.

All of you have felt hatred directed your way.

Incredibly there is not a person on earth who in some way or another  is not a minority or seen as such. There is not a person on this earth who is not disliked by another, even if that ‘other’ is unknown to them.

Ask the English/Irish descendants living in Toronto  today how much of a majority they are and they will respond that a trip on a local subway will show them as being far more of a minority than ever before, and that status, increasing everyday. Ask them how safe they feel in ‘English/Irish’ Toronto and how much influence they will have in the future and the answer will be something like, “not much, eh!.”

So we are all at times marginalized and then at times we are not, and likely marginalizing others.  I say that because  it seems to be a survival thing. When I am on top, I will secure my position up there, to  keep on top,  by putting you down.

I am a man and was raised on morsels of chauvinism so I have demeaned women in my day. I have sat too long at a table waiting for my Mother or sisters to clean up after me.

I am white and have pondered the idea that a great majority of men and women in jail are black, and therefore, drawn the conclusion that blacks are more violent or prone to be institutionalized. This thought in of itself creates a negative energy in my head and mind – one I need to continually challenge and change.

I constantly defend Muslims as people who want peace but inwardly consider that they are a warring people with little desire for co-existence anywhere.

Am I a racist, a true chauvinist, with a propensity for violence or the ability to subjugate others? Mostly not. Somewhat, yes?

This is the human condition and while there are those individuals who harbor no negative  thoughts against others, and want only peace in our world, recognizing that most men, women and children want the same and are good – most of us are not that way.

I say this is the human condition because I watch nature and see that insects and bugs fight against one another for dominance; and I see that lions, tigers and bears do the same. I watch the world split up into territories, then nations, then states, than municipalities, then neighborhoods, then then then……

We seem to be tribal in that way to the extent that if someone new moves into our neighborhood or building they are suspect. We are the ant and they are the termite and we will build a stronger fortress to defend ourselves. From what? It doesn’t matter. They are the other.

They are different than we are. We need to marginalize them before they do the same to us. The above picture seems to reflect this.

We need to look inwardly and determine that people are mostly good and those who are not are the minority. While the minority can be vocal and dangerous – Nazis proved that – it is imperative we know that they are the smaller of the groups and therefore can be stymied, stopped from their evil ways.

Question:

1. Who do you really dislike or hate?

2. What would you do to those people given the chance?

3. Would you save one of their children given the chance?

4. Are you conscious of your negative feelings toward others, that you have created brush strokes of dislike/hatred, and are you consciously trying to change them?

Let me know the truth. Let us start here with a movement of reconciliation among all God’s creations, among all the people of the world. We have the capacity to give out negative energy, so we have the capacity to extend the opposite.

As Canadians mark Holocaust Education Week, it is a sobering thought to realize that the genocide in Darfur has lasted longer than the Holocaust itself. And it continues unabated.

I found the following letter on http://reachouttohorses.wordpress.com

Please read it. The author of the letter asks that we share this far and wide with individuals who can make a difference. My organization, Ve’ahavta, has worked for years in Zimbabwe and I can verify that what this man writes is very true.

Zimbabwe is a very dangerous place, now more so than ever, and while their ‘leader’ Robert Mugabe begins to loose his grip, he and the army generals and who have benefited from their power will destroy and hurt others on a daily basis – with the belief they will regain control.

Send this letter to your MP and/or  MPP, or member of Congress. It is a fact that voices of concern around the world can change things!!! You can make a difference. Do not be silent when you see evil, this time on the ground in Zimbabwe.  

Letter from Zimbabwe sent in by John Winter

I reckon that these are the last days of TKM and ZPF. The darkest hour is always before the dawn.

We are all terrified at what they are going to destroy next……..I mean they are actually ploughing down brick and mortar houses and one family with twin boys of 10 had no chance of salvaging anything when 100 riot police came in with AK47’s and bulldozers and demolished their beautiful house – 5 bedrooms and pine ceilings – because it was ‘too close to the airport’, so we are feeling extremely insecure right now.

You know – I am aware that this does not help you sleep at night, but if you do not know – how can you help? Even if you put us in your own mental ring of light and send your guardian angels to be with us – that is a help -but I feel so cut off from you all knowing I cannot tell you what’s going  on here simply because you will feel uncomfortable. There is no ways we can leave here so that is not an option.

I ask that you all pray for us in the way that you know how, and let me know that you are thinking of us and sending out positive vibes… that’s all. You can’t just be in denial and pretend/believe it’s not going on.

To be frank with you, it’s genocide in the making and if you do not believe me, read the Genocide Report by Amnesty International which says we are – IN level 7 – (level 8 is after it’s happened and everyone is in denial).

If you don’t want me to tell you these things-how bad it is-then it means you have not dealt with your own fear, but it does not help me to think you are turning your back on our situation. We need you, please, to get the news OUT that we are all in a fearfully dangerous situation here. Too many people turn their backs and say – oh well, that’s what happens in Africa

This Government has GONE MAD and you need to help us publicize our plight—or how can we be rescued? It’s a reality! The petrol queues are a reality, the pall of smoke all around our city is a reality, the thousands of homeless people sleeping outside in 0 Celsius with no food, water, shelter and bedding are a reality. Today a family approached me, brother of the gardener’s wife with two small children. Their home was trashed and they will have to sleep outside. We already support 8 adult people and a child on this property, and electricity is going up next month by 250% as is water.

How can I take on another family of 4 —–and yet how can I turn them away to sleep out in the open?

I am not asking you for money or a ticket out of here – I am asking you to FACE the fact that we are in deep and terrible danger and want you please to pass on our news and pictures. So PLEASE don’t just press the delete button! Help best in the way that you know how.

Do face the reality of what is going on here and help us SEND OUT THE WORD.. The more people who know about it, the more chance we have of the United Nations coming to our aid. Please don’t ignore or deny what’s happening.

Some would like to be protected from the truth BUT then, if we are eliminated, how would you feel? ‘If only we knew how bad it really was we could have helped in some way’.

[I know we chose to stay here and that some feel we deserve what's coming to us]

For now,— we ourselves have food, shelter, a little fuel and a bit of money for the next meal – but what is going to happen next? Will they start on our houses? All property is going to belong to the State now. I want to send out my Title Deeds to one of you because if they get a hold of those, I can’t fight for my rights.

Censorship!—-We no longer have SW radio [which told us everything that was happening] because the Government jammed it out of existence – we don’t have any reporters, and no one is allowed to photograph. If we had reporters here, they would have an absolute field day. Even the pro-Government Herald has written that people are shocked, stunned, bewildered and blown mindless by the wanton destruction of many folks homes, which are supposed to be ‘illegal’ but for which a huge percentage actually do have licenses.

Please! – do have some compassion and HELP by sending out the articles and personal reports so that something can/may be done.

‘I am one. I cannot do everything, —but I can do something.. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God,
I will do.’

Edward Everett Hale

http://reachouttohorses.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/a-letter-from-zimbabwe/

BELFAST, Northern Ireland – The thugs used bricks and bottles to drive more than 100 Romanian Gypsies from their homes in a wave of attacks. On Wednesday, the victims were sheltering in a community centre after a church plucked them off a Belfast street.

The grim images from this week – families carrying possessions in bundled blankets, a mother clutching her 5-day-old baby – are more evidence of rising anti-immigrant sentiment across Europe, but also of a situation unique to Northern Ireland: new fault lines in its tragic history of ethnic divisions.

About 20 Romanian families, carrying their belongings in suitcases, duffel bags and blankets, were being sheltered on the community centre’s indoor tennis courts. One man carried an accordion, while parents gripped the hands of young children and some women covered their heads with jackets and sweaters to avoid being photographed.

The families were taken in by the City Church on Tuesday after youths attacked their homes in a working-class neighbourhood of south Belfast, smashing windows and hurling threats. Local authorities moved them to the roomier community centre Wednesday morning. Some said the attackers had guns, but there were no reports of serious injuries.

“They made signs like they wanted to cut my brother’s baby’s throat,” said one man, Couaccusil Filuis. “They said they wanted to kill us.”

Police said the racist attacks started last week, with gangs smashing house windows and attacking cars. The violence flared again on Monday when youths hurling bottles and Nazi salutes attacked an anti-racism rally called to support the migrants.

Belfast City council press officer Mark Ashby said the majority of the victims were Roma, or Gypsies, from Romania.

Romania’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attacks and urged British authorities to take measures to avoid more racist violence.

Marian Mandache, from the Romanian Gypsy NGO Romani Criss, said the Northern Ireland violence was the latest in a disturbing trend of attacks across Europe.

“Starting with Italy in 2007, there have been waves of … racist attacks against Roma,” said Mandache. “Afterwards, there were attacks in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania.”

The Northern Ireland government said the displaced Romanians would be given temporary accommodation in Belfast. But many said they wanted to leave Northern Ireland.

“We want to go home because right now we are not safe here,” said a woman who gave only her first name, Maria. “We want to go back home to Romania, everybody right now does.”

Racial tensions are rising across Europe as the pace of migration grows and the economy worsens. Far-right parties picked up seats in many countries in elections for the European Parliament earlier this month. The whites-only British National Party, which calls for the “voluntary repatriation” of immigrants, increased its share of the vote and won its first two European seats.

Europe’s 7 to 9 million Roma people face widespread prejudice in Romania – where estimates of their numbers vary between 500,000 and 2 million – and other countries. The European Union’s rights agency has said Roma face “overt discrimination” in housing, health care and education, despite many government programs designed to help them.

Since Romania joined the EU in 2007, thousands of Roma have moved west to richer European countries, where many live in squalid camps with no access to health services, education, basic sanitary facilities or jobs. More than 700 encampments have been built in Italy, where Gypsies have been met with hostility and blamed for begging and street crime.

Northern Ireland has only a tiny Romanian population – fewer than 1,000 people, according to a government estimate.

But a number of Romanian Gypsies have moved to Belfast since 2007 and have become a visible presence, selling newspapers on the city’s streets.

“The fact is we’ve seen a lot of things change here – people selling the Belfast Telegraph on the streets, something you didn’t see before,” said Jolena Flett of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities. “They are easily identifiable.”

“When people are looking for a fight, as a lot of people are now, just because of frustrations in their own lives, anything will spark it off.”

Northern Ireland’s surge in racist violence over the past few years has coincided with the decline in Northern Ireland’s traditional conflict between paramilitary groups rooted in rival Catholic and Protestant districts.

Much of the violence has been blamed on Protestant youths, who once would have vented their anger against Catholics or joined outlawed pro-British paramilitary groups.

Racist attacks have become especially common in south Belfast, a diverse area that is home to Queen’s University, some of the city’s most affluent neighbourhoods and a Protestant district known as The Village, a close-knit working-class neighbourhood where curbstones are painted in pro-British red white and blue.

Dozens of families, including Chinese, Africans and Poles, have been driven from their homes in recent years, and student houses – occupied by a mix of Catholics and Protestants – have been attacked by Protestant gangs.

Patrick Yu, director of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, accused the perpetrators of seeking “ethnic cleansing of all minorities out of the Village and the surrounding area.”

The latest bout of racial tension in Belfast has escalated since an international soccer match between Poland and Northern Ireland sparked rioting three months ago. Flett said more than 40 Polish families had been forced out of their homes in south Belfast since then.

Police said there was no evidence the violence against the Romanians had been orchestrated by paramilitary groups, and politicians from both sides of the sectarian divide were quick to condemn the attacks.

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, a Catholic and former IRA commander, said the attacks had been carried out by “racist criminals within our society who are unrepresentative of the vast majority of the people of Belfast.”

“I am appalled at this situation,” said Health Minister Michael McGimpsey, a Protestant from the Ulster Unionist Party. “There is no place in Northern Ireland for this kind of racist violence and abuse.”

-

Associated Press Writers Meera Selva and Nardine Saad in London and Alina Wolfe Murray in Bucharest, Romania contributed to this report. Lawless reported from London.

_________________________________________________________________________

Avrum’s Comment: Oh, damn, they must have forgotten this. Whoops!

Iran: the last executioner of children

See this Amnesty Link: www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/iran/page.do?id=1011172

Iran is one of the only countries left in the world today that still executes children and child offenders (those accused of committing an offense when they were under 18 years of age).  At least 130 juvenile offenders face execution, but the total number could be much higher as many death penalty cases in Iran are believed to go unreported.  At least eight child offenders were executed in 2007. Iran is the only country in the world known to have executed a juvenile offender in 2008. At least seven juvenile offenders have been executed in 2008. The last known execution, of Gholamreza H.,  took place on 29 October 2008.  Behnam Zare was executed on 26 August 2008. He was only 15 at the time the alleged crime took place.

Call to Action: Involve yourself in fighting human rights atrocities in Iran. The number of youth, children and mentally ill executed in this country is astounding  (see link below).  Iran is a country with some very fine people; it’s leadership however is barbaric. If you think this is hyperbole do some blogging. While you do your research, remember that Iran is at the forefront of co-ordinating Durban 2, and its ‘leadership’ will be speaking at this ‘human rights conference’.

Idea: Start a human rights committee among your friends. Determine a country you want to help. Iran is a good place to direct your efforts. Amnesty International has shown letter writing is very affective.

We live in a free country in a most beautiful time and can express ourselves as we see fit. We therefore have the responsibility to speak loudly on behalf of those who don’t.

For More Information see ‘Iran Human Rights’ website  www.iranhr.net/spip.php?article634